


Recovering Fanboys

by cherrylime



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Bodyswap, Borderlands Mini Bang, Chronic Pain, Cybernetics, Dialogue Heavy, M/M, Redemption, borderlands capitalism hell, canon-typical goofy shit, eridian nonsense, pizza party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-17 01:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20612567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrylime/pseuds/cherrylime
Summary: Rhys and Katagawa might be more alike than either of them would like to admit.  What will they do when some wacky Eridian vault magic forces them to address their issues with each other?Written for the 2019 Borderlands MiniBang!





	Recovering Fanboys

**Author's Note:**

> Indulgent fic in anticipation for BL3! Descriptions of Helios Fallen are based both on my own headcanons and on the Commander Lilith DLC. Enjoy :)

The sleek spacecraft’s airlock doors slid open with a sigh. A hot blast of air surged in, slinging a dry splash of sand into the airlock. Rhys could already feel the sweat springing up on his skin under the layers of his expensive suit.

“There you are, Rhys!” Vaughn grabbed Rhys into a rib-crushing hug. “How was the flight?” 

Rhys could feel the soles of his pointy shoes leave the ground for a moment as Vaughn picked him up. “Didn’t throw up this time, so I’ll count that as a win,” Rhys said, straining in Vaughn’s tight grip.

Vaughn thumped him heartily on the back and put him down. “It’s been way too long, bro! Come on, let me give you the tour.”

“How’s the bandit king gig going, bro?” Rhys asked, stepping carefully to avoid getting sand in his shoes. Looking over at Vaughn, Rhys took in his richly dyed teal cape, matching wrap pants, and what looked like the remains of a business casual vest. 

“Got all the salvaged Hyperion tech I could ever want and all the grilled varkid legs I can eat. What’s not to like?” Vaughn chuckled. “You sure that such a distinguished CEO such as yourself wants to associate with a bandit like me?”

“Vaughn,” Rhys paused, “you barely fit most people’s idea of the classic Pandora bandit.”

Vaughn pretended to be hurt, putting a hand to his heart and pulling a face. “I do all the classic stuff, Rhys. The running, the gunning- we even have Pizza Tuesday, although it involves substantially less face meat than is traditional.”

Walking away from the helipad with Vaughn, Rhys felt a cold wave of guilt rise in his guts as Helios Fallen came into view between the snaggletooth spires of the Burrows, glittering dazzlingly under the red Pandoran sunset. 

The shattered twin summits of the ruined Helios soared above them, unfolding upwards towards its now-abandoned place in low Pandora orbit. Below, Helio’s impact basin was immense. It extended for miles in every direction, partially obscured by the Burrows, the rim not visible from the central wreck even on a clear day. Huge sheets of yellow and silver debris had sloughed off the main structure, curling upwards like ribcages, forming the protective labyrinth of the Burrows. Some shards of Helios stood imposingly, impossibly huge, having settled in jumbles of clean Hyperion geometry and sharp organic splinters of sunbaked metal. Bizarre shadows quarreled across the sand, cast by even stranger metal shapes ripped out of the body of the wreck. The devastation was breathtaking, even for Pandora. 

Rhys swallowed nervously. “You’re not going to make me eat any varkid legs, are you? Or… any other part of whatever a varkid is?”

“It’s not Pizza Tuesday yet, Rhys. Today is Fried Skag Hearts Thursday.”

Vaughn led him down a sandy, winding path to the main entrance at the heart of the Burrows. Gardens of hardy desert plants bloomed around its base, contrasting brightly with the richly heliotrope-tinted sand of the crash site and the corroding arrangement of Helios’ fragments.

“Helios kind of wiped out anything alive around here when it crashed, not that there was that much living here to begin with, so we had to learn how to grow our own food,” Vaughn said. 

“Jeez, I don’t envy you having to do that.”

“Surprisingly, a bunch of corporate goons living in orbit didn’t know much about plants. The scientists that survived the crash didn’t even have a clue. Not on crash-irradiated Pandoran sand, at least.”

They wound through a variety of semi-sheltered outdoor spaces. The Helios Hellions were everywhere, gardening or hanging laundry or chatting or patrolling. As Rhys passed by, they pointed and whispered among themselves.

“They’re not still… obsessed with me, are they?”

Vaughn laughed. “Just wait ‘til we get into the Hub of Heroism, bud. There are three things the Hellions love: fire, fruit, and the guy that freed them from corporate hell.”

Inside the ruins of Helios, the decrease in temperature was immediate. Rhys shivered. Vaughn confidently led the way through the knotted snarl of pathways and dead-ends into the vaulted space that had once been the Hub of Heroism. 

The Helios Hellions watched both of them with rapt attention. The walls of the crumpled Hub were littered with makeshift balconies and living spaces built onto or against the metal. Reclaimed, yellow Hyperion-issue bedsheets hung in doorways and over windows, fluttering in the draft. Everywhere, murals of abstract, rhythmic patterns obscured the familiar angles and edges that Rhys recognized from his years living on Helios. 

“Get a load of that, Rhys. It’s creepy as hell.”

The screens that had once featured previous Hyperion CEOs had been smashed out, revealing a tall hollow space above the elevator entrance to Jack’s office. On cue, one of the Hellions turned on a hidden spotlight, illuminating the dark figure inside. There was a scattered round of cheers as it came into view. A somewhat amateur stone statue of Rhys stood in their place. It was painted garishly, with the moustache slapped on as what looked like an afterthought. 

“Oh god,” Rhys said.

“I told them not to put it in there but they were determined,” Vaughn shrugged. “I don’t think they know what to do if they don’t have someone to idolize.”

“At least it’s not the decapitated Jack statue.”

“Don’t worry, they still have that stashed away somewhere too.”

\--

“Man, how has it been so long since we’ve seen each other?” 

“No idea,” Rhys replied as Vaughn led him through another maze of half-crushed hallways, this route even more complicated than the last one.

“It’s like, I don’t know, we’ve both been busy but I definitely thought I’d have visited Promethea by now. Feel like I’m the only one of the old group who hasn’t gone off on some intergalactic adventure, you know? Besides leaving home to go to Hyperion.” 

“Don’t worry about that, Vaughn. We’ve got plenty of time to be shot at in neutral space by pirates or whatever. Plus, Promethea wasn’t the most tourist friendly place during the siege.”

“I guess. How’s the cleanup effort going anyway?”

“Mostly done, which is why I left it up to my staff and came here. With Maliwan licking their wounds I don’t think they’ll be too quick to take on Ol’ Rhys again.”

“Come on,” Vaughn gave him a playful shove. “Those new Vault Hunters totally had to come save your ass.”

“Maybe it got a bit dicey, but what is a crushing defeat without a bit of drama in the middle, huh?”

“Sure,” Vaughn said, chuckling. 

He pointed out several features of the Hellion’s hideout as they walked. There were a number of cozy little spaces tucked into the ruins, looking more inviting than they ought to despite the sand and the warped debris around them. Vaughn also made a point to identify places that Rhys should avoid. 

“The old Hyperion security system is still active in some areas,” he explained. “We’ve managed to turn some sections off, but some of the AI seems to have gone a bit... renegade.”

“What does that mean?”

“Just be on the lookout for an errant EXP Loader or sentry turret if you go wandering off by yourself.”

“I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that. It seems like it’s easy to get lost in here.”

“Sorry, we had to take the long way around since one of the passages collapsed. We’ve been fixing it but it’s never really clear what exactly is load-bearing around here.”

“Does stuff collapse… often?”

“Oh no, not at all. It seems like Helios has settled just about as much as it’s going to. But that’s part of the fun of living in a half-smashed 106 story high space station.”

They went a bit further, coming into a rotunda-esque space with a tall, domed ceiling that was full of holes. Sunlight filtered in, projecting weird, bright shapes on the floor. Rhys had never seen this place while he’d lived and worked on Helios. It wasn’t at all like the stripped-down, pre-fabbed construction he associated with life in space. Instead, it more closely resembled the open-air, beachy porticos he’d seen on Aquator. There was a hexagonal planter in the middle, surrounded on all sides by metal benches. The same generic, plasticky looking plants grew in it that had dominated all of Helios’ so-called “green” public spaces.

“Isn’t this place great? It’s where all the vice presidents used to live,” Vaughn said.

“The VPs lived here? Where did Jack live?”

“We haven’t quite figured that one out yet. Gotta be pretty snazzy if he let the VPs live in luxury like this, though. Anyway, this is where everyone sleeps. The Hellions were disappointed to hear that you’d probably want your own room, but I figured that somehow you’d prefer the privacy.”

“Good call.”

“Come on, I’ll show you where you’re staying.”

They had only walked a few steps before Vaughn spoke again.

“Oh yeah, I nearly forgot! and don’t drink out of the sinks. The water that comes out is a bit more flammable than you’d expect and that probably makes it kinda, you know, unsafe to drink.”

At his hip, Vaughn’s ECHOcomm flickered to life. “We got a disruption at the southeast tower, boss.”

Vaughn picked up. “What is it?”

“Just looks like one guy,” the voice from the ECHO replied. “Wearing a suit. He looks pretty messed up.”

Putting the ECHO to his mouth, Vaughn asked, “What’s he doing?”

“Just stumbling around a little less than a kilometer away from our perimeter. Should I let him pass by?”

“Just keep an eye on him, I guess.” Vaughn hung up the ECHO and both of them were silent for a moment.

“Maybe I just haven’t spent enough time here, but this seems a little unusual, even for Pandora.”

“Eh, you get all kinds out here. Probably just some weirdo that gets his jollies walking around in the desert rakk-watching or something.”

The ECHO rang again.

“He fell down, boss,” the Hellion’s voice crackled over the buzzy ECHO connection.

“What do you mean?”

“Just laying in the sand now, in a dead faint.”

“Is he dead?”

“I don’t see any blood. Hard to say,” you could hear the Hellion’s’ shrug in their voice. 

“I’ll send out a patrol to your location. They can clear the surrounding area and then check up on our wandering salesman.”

“10-4.”

\--

“What the _ fuck _.”

Rhys had never actually seen Katagawa in the flesh. There’d been plenty of obnoxious calls, day and night, so he was at least familiar with what Katagawa looked like. Away from the staticky hologram graininess and ECHO avatar images, he looked smaller than Rhys expected. 

Katagawa was missing one shoe and the skin on his neck and face was tinged pink with sunburn. His hair, usually coiffed high and neat, hung limply to one side of his face. 

One of the Hellions poured water into Katagawa’s mouth. He choked, sputtering, and pushed the Hellion off of him. Sitting up, he froze as he spotted Rhys and Vaughn. 

“You’re taller than I expected,” he said.

“What the hell, man?” Vaughn said. “What are you even doing out there?”

“I was doing _ just fine _ on my own,” Katagawa replied, somehow managing to sound silvery and mercurial.

Vaughn laughed, “Well you did a fine job, like, almost dying in the desert! I know what that looks like, trust me, and on the brink of desert death is exactly what you look like right now.”

Not really sure what to say, Rhys tried his best. “How are you even here right now?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Katagawa said, unsteadily getting to his feet. “Anyway, I’d absolutely adore the chance to stay here and chat the whole day away, but I have things to do. People to see.”

Vaughn stepped in front of him. “Listen, as much as I don’t want you to stay here, all your corpse is going to do is attract sand worms into the basin again. Can we, I don’t know, drop you off somewhere?”

Katagawa made a show of trying to brush off his filthy suit jacket, “I'm fine.”

“Did you follow me here?” Rhys asked as he stepped up next to Vaughn. “Whatever you’re trying to pull here, I’m certainly not going to pretend I understand.”

“Not everything is about you,” Katagawa moued. 

Katagawa elbowed past Rhys, his cybernetic arm clanging against Rhys’. A burst of purple electricity exploded from the metal-on-metal connection and both of them sprung away from each other.

“Fuck, I knew you made your arm yourself, but I expected slightly better from Mr. Atlas himself,” Katagawa spat. 

“Mine? Clearly you’ve been skipping out on your annual maintenance. Got a couple loose wires or something?”

“Rhys, are you alright?” Vaughn asked, standing anxiously at his side.

At his temple, Rhys’ head port lit up. Moments later, Katagawa’s port flared to life, flashing orange.

“Gonna have to run a diagnostic,” Rhys grumbled. He pulled up his arm’s holographic screen, which flickered and crackled. With a crunch, another burst of purple sparkled from his palm, destroying the image.

“What was that?” Vaughn said.

Rhys winced. “That… actually hurt.”

“What the hell did you do to me?” Katagawa cradled his limp cybernetic arm with his other hand.

“Me? What did you-” Rhys put a hand to his temple. “Damn that really went straight to my head…”

Vaughn put a hand on Rhys’ arm. Rhys teetered, vision blurring before the optical feed from his cybernetic eye cut out completely, and fainted into Vaughn’s arms. Vaughn staggered under the sudden deadweight of his body, but managed to keep him vaguely upright. 

Meanwhile, Katagawa crumpled face-first into the sand.

“What the fuck just happened?” Vaughn said. 

\--

Some time later, Rhys woke up. He was terribly thirsty. Everything was washed grey-blue in the Pandoran nighttime and there was just barely enough light to see by. Vaughn must’ve put into him into the remnants of one of the tiny old loft apartments near manufacturing while he was out. He’d been to someone’s birthday party in one of these, but he couldn’t remember whose. The room was a crumpled version of its previous self, the clean lines converted into wrinkled, warping configurations. 

Slowly, he pulled himself from the threadbare mattress. Standing up, he found that his cybernetic arm was unresponsive. Years of muscle memory brought his other hand to the two switches on his arm that would let him completely undock it from its shoulder socket. Or, they would have if his fingers had actually made contact with the switches. They would have if he’d even lifted the correct hand to begin with. In fact, nothing had happened all at, since the hand he’d tried to lift was the unresponsive cybernetic one. 

His cybernetic arm was on the wrong side. 

The fingers of his right, non-dominant hand fumbled randomly against what, he was quickly realizing, were completely alien metal forms and ridges on his arm. He held the limp cybernetic arm out in front of him by the wrist, its reflective metal catching the weak light.

This was not his arm. 

This arm was gunmetal grey, covered in elegant angles and ending everywhere in sharp points. It was the left arm, Rhys’ dominant one and also his usually-not-cybernetic one. His cybernetic arm, the correct arm that he should have, was magenta-red and smooth with ball-shaped joints. 

Reeling, Rhys let the cybernetic arm drop and flexed the muscles in his right hand. He’d never had a flesh arm on that side before. Instinctively, he tried to reach up and touch it with his other hand. The cybernetic left arm hung loose at his side. 

This was not his body.

He grabbed the cybernetic forearm again, turning it over, and found that everything did not, as he’d quietly hoped, suddenly reform into the familiar angles of his own body. Both of his arms continued to be uncomfortably incorrect. Uncertain, he probed around for some way to undock the unresponsive arm. One thing at a time.

His fingers found the undocking switches and the cybernetic arm slithered out of its socket with the same nerve-deep ache as it always did, just on the wrong side. He felt curiously off-balance in a way he never had before. 

The arm clattered loudly on the concrete floor. Moving as if in a dream, Rhys bent to pick it up. The ground seemed to be much closer than what he was used to. His pointy-toed shoes had at some point been replaced with a single, standardly stylish round-toed corporate loafer, while the other foot bore only a sock. Leaving the cybernetic arm on the mattress, he felt along the wall for a light switch. He could only hope this part of the wreck was still powered somehow. 

Fortunately, the lights sprang on without issue. He looked himself over. The green dress shirt and pants were filthy, covered in sand and who knew what else- the Maliwan logo embroidered into its collar. Shakily, he went to the bathroom mirror.

This was definitely not his body.

He turned his face, or definitely not _ his _face, back and forth. This was Katagawa’s face. Well, it was certainly Katagawa’s face, but the expression of panicked distress was all Rhys. 

“This can’t be real,” Rhys said, in Katagawa’s voice. 

He pulled experimentally on the skin of his- Katagawa’s- face. Pushing back the untidy fringe of sand-gritty hair, he felt hazy and disconnected from the reflection. It was just like seeing your reflection as the character model in one of those super-detailed VR games. With an uncomfortable squirm in his guts, Rhys found himself reminded of the woozy-sick feeling that persisted for a few seconds right after being digistructed out of a New-U station.

He took a steadying, if not just a bit shaky, breath. Somehow, he was Katagawa now. Or, was his consciousness inside Katagawa’s body? Had this all been a dream and he’d been Katagawa all along? 

No, Rhys distinctly remembered being himself. He’d been taller. His arms had always been the reverse of his current arm situation. He’d been softer around the middle, less toned. He was older than Katagawa too. He remembered his friends. He remembered Hyperion, and Jack. He remembered the small and delicate thing that had ruptured somewhere within himself when he’d watched the fall of Helios. He’d lived his whole life in that body, the correct one. Something had happened to change that.

From the mirror, Katagawa’s yellow ECHOeye watched him. Just like all of Katagawa’s cybernetics, it was on the side opposite of his own. Cautiously, he tried turning it on in the same way he did with his. At the thought, the yellow eye’s shutter twisted open, the threads of light around the iris now fully exposed. 

The unfamiliar Maliwan GUI overlaid his vision in that eye, coloring the world a hectic swirl of blue, orange, and light grey. Looking himself over, an error code and the shortcut to the digital maintenance manual for the arm sprang up, no doubt triggered by whatever had bricked it in the first place. Scanning around the room, Katagawa’s eye offered only a meager handful of information. It didn’t seem like his cybernetics had access to the Maliwan database anymore, since the only results the eye pulled up were either internal files or junky local data from the public ECHOnet. 

He spun through Katagawa’s contacts until he found his own number. It was not, surprisingly, listed under “R” or “S,” as Rhys had expected, not even “A” for Atlas. With a blush that came much more easily to Katagawa’s face than it usually did to his own, he tried to ignore the fact that there was a heart emoji in front of his name which kept it from being listed alphabetically. 

Connecting to the Pandora Public ECHOnet, Rhys attempted to call the number for his own cybernetics. As the call rang out, he remembered with a bristle of frustration that he’d blocked all of Katagawa’s numbers after the Promethean Siege.

He did a quick check under “V” for Vaughn, not expecting to find anything and quickly proving himself correct. A quick search of the ECHOs available on the LAN did, however, reveal Vaughn’s signal. 

He checked the front door before he called, but it just rattled in its frame and stayed firmly locked.

“Come on, Vaughn,” Rhys said to himself as the ECHO rang.

“Katagawa?” Vaughn’s voice was heavy with sleep.

“No, it’s me. It’s Rhys.”

“Wha-” Vaughn audibly woke up a bit more. “What? I can see it’s you from the caller ID. You didn’t even disguise your voice, dude.”

“Look, I know what it sounds like but its me. I’m Rhys. I don’t know what happened but I’m like… in Katagawa’s body instead of mine. I’m kind of freaking out here, bro.”

“Damn, Rhys told me you got up to some weird stuff like this but I never really believed him. Do you really think I’m gonna fall for this one? I know people think bandits are dumb but you have to remember that I’m-”

“Vaughn,” Rhys interrupted, exasperated. “Remember that party the supply-chain office had a while after you got promoted the first time? We both got drunk and I-”

It was Vaughn’s turn to interrupt. “Whoa, whoa okay. How did ...uh, what? How did you find out about that? Did Rhys tell you? ‘Cuz like… I really didn’t think he would tell you about that.”

“It’s me,” Rhys repeated. “I don’t know what happened, Vaughn, but it’s me. Do you want me to go on? Because there was that other time after Mercenary Day when we-”

“Alright! Okay, Rhys definitely wouldn’t have told you that! What the hell… Rhys? That’s you?” 

“Somehow, yeah.”

“Wait, hold on,” The sound of shuffling came from Vaughn’s end of the line. “I’ll come to you, okay? Just give me a minute.”

\--

“You know, I didn’t notice before that Katagawa’s nearly the same height as me,” Vaughn said.

“Definitely not the highest priority thing about this situation, I think.”

Vaughn circled Rhys curiously. “You’re sure this isn’t some kind of clever robot-body he like… uploaded your brain into?”

“I don’t think so. Everything hurts because he’s, uh, I’m so dehydrated. Or maybe Katagawa just always feels like this.”

“Did something happen to the arm? You didn’t break it, did you? Katagawa would probably be pissed.”

“No, I didn’t break it,” Rhys replied disdainfully. “It was like this when I woke up. Not really sure what happened. Haven’t really had a lot of time to think it about it, considering, you know?” He gestured a bit frantically at himself. 

Vaughn looked him up and down. “You know, you’re taking this surprisingly well.”

“I'm not sure its fully sunk in yet,” Rhys managed to reply. 

They stepped out of the little holding cell-slash-loft apartment together, Rhys with Katagawa’s limp cybernetic arm tucked under his arm. 

“I had the Hellions put you, I mean… your body- damn it, Rhys, this is really weird. Anyway, the room is just down this way.”

They came to another door with two Hellions standing out front. They acknowledged Vaughn and stepped out of the way. 

“Doesn’t seem like he’s woken up yet, boss.”

Vaughn nodded and opened the door. “We’ll just go check up on him.” 

It was dark inside, the only audible sounds were the soft rhythmic breaths of someone sleeping. 

Just enough light filtered in from the open door that Rhys could see himself, across the room, laying in bed.

Vaughn fidgeted uncomfortably. “Aw man, this is so weird.”

“You think this is weird for you?”

Rhys’ body stirred and sat half-up on the mattress. It was jarring seeing his own body like this.

“Katagawa?” Vaughn asked quietly.

“Wha-?”

Rhys’, or, actually Katagawa’s, expression transitioned from drowsy confusion to complete bewilderment. 

He looked at Rhys and then looked down at himself. 

Reaching out, he blearily looked back up at Rhys. One of his hands touched his own face and the other touched the face that was usually his, but was currently inhabited by Rhys. His fingers scrubbed back and forth across Rhys’ moustache. Noticing that his hand wasn’t receiving any normal haptic feedback, he looked down at the arm he was using which was Rhys’ magenta-red cybernetic one. Looking back up at Rhys, he flexed the cybernetic fingers gingerly. 

“What,” was all he managed to say before he fainted back onto the bed. 

Vaughn hesitated for a moment. “I definitely pictured that going a lot worse than it did,” he said.

Experimentally, Rhys touched Katagawa’s limp, undocked arm to his own cybernetic arm. Nothing happened.

“Is this really what I look like when I’m asleep?” Rhys asked. 

“Usually you take your arm off first, but yeah pretty much.” 

On the bed, Katagawa stirred. 

Rhys looked at Vaughn. “Maybe you can explain this to him so that he doesn’t, uh, have to look at himself the entire time he’s figuring this out?”

“Good idea,” Vaughn nodded. “Hellions, take Rhys over to the cafeteria and let him eat something.”

“Isn’t Mr. Rhys still asleep?” The Hellion glanced over to the bed.

“For all intents and purposes let’s just say that Katagawa is Rhys now and Rhys is Katagawa. Make sense?”

“Absolutely not, but whatever you say, boss.”

\--

The Hellions dropped Rhys off at a doorway labeled in large yellow letters as the “Snak Shak.” 

Inside, one of the Hellions behind the counter handed Rhys a tray with a number of items on it. Nothing was even remotely recognizable except for a half pint of bullymong milk in a labelled wax paper container. Rhys shuffled over to the beat-up Hyperion-issue coffee machine and filled up a mug. Say what you will about Hyperion, but nobody ever got re-hydrated powdered space coffee right quite like they did.

Juggling Katagawa’s undocked arm and his tray, Rhys found himself a seat. He’d only just opened the container of milk to add to his coffee when Vaughn and Katagawa walked in. 

Katagawa looked between his cybernetic arm and the container of milk. 

“First of all,” he said, “what happened with my arm? Second of all-” 

Rhys looked up, pouring a bit of milk into his coffee.

“You might not want to drink that anymore,” Katagawa said.

Rhys quirked an eyebrow at him inquiringly. 

“I’m lactose intolerant.” His voice started to trail off as he went on, “and seeing as that’s _ my _ body and all...”

“O-oh okay yeah. Gonna have to remember that one!” Rhys laughed nervously and pushed the mug towards Katagawa. “Here, you take this one.”

“I prefer my coffee black,” Katagawa pushed the mug towards Vaughn.

Vaughn drank, slurping.

Katagawa rubbed his temple, below Rhys’ forehead port, as if the dawning twinges of a headache were on the horizon. 

Two black coffees and three sugar packets in hand, Rhys joined them at the table again. He looked awkwardly at the tray of mystery food. 

“Any other allergies?” he asked.

“No, that’s it. You?”

“No… well uh, I’m allergic to ratch eggs.”

“Those disgusting creatures on Promethea? How did you even figure that out?”

“It’s, uh, a long story.”

All three of them sat in agonizing silence for a moment. 

“Now that that’s all settled,” Katagawa said, “What the hell did you do to my arm?”

“It was like this when I woke up. I’m not exactly an expert in weird shit but I’m going to take a wild guess and say that it has something to do with our… current situation.”

“Whatever caused that weird electricity must be a part of it,” Vaughn said.

Katagawa grabbed the undocked silver cybernetic arm.

“I already tried that,” Rhys said as Katagawa touched the two arms together.

“It was worth a try,” Katagawa muttered.

“Alright so now we can move on to something that might actually work,” Rhys began. “Vaughn, does Helios Fallen have any tools I could use to fix the arm? Unless, you know how to fix it, Katagawa?”

Katagawa shook his head. “I don’t have anything with me to fix it, either,” he said quietly, biting his lip. 

“We have some shop tools we use to fix the runners and some other stuff from Cassius that you could look through,” Vaughn offered. “There’s probably some Hyperion cybernetics laying around somewhere, if you can find them.”

“That’s a good start. I have my repair kit but my arm is all proprietary Atlas parts and I’ll probably have to modify them to work with this. What kind of tech is it?”

“It’s a MLWN-27J0. Last year’s newest model,” Katagawa looked ruefully at the fried limb.

“Honestly, I didn’t even know Maliwan offered cybernetics,” Vaughn said.

“The division was recently acquired,” Katagawa replied haughtily.

Everyone decided to take an uncomfortable sip of coffee at the same time. 

“So, uh, I figure we should talk about living situation if this is going to be an extended stay with an unexpected plus one, huh?” 

Rhys shot Vaughn a tired look, but listened.

“I already talked about this with you, Rhys, but we should go over it with Katagawa as well. Helios Fallen always needs all the hands it can get to keep things running, so both of you will be added to the chore wheel.”

“The chore wheel?” Katagawa tried to cut in, but Vaughn continued over him.

“The Hellions really care about things being fair, so my hands are tied here. You’ll have to help out with harvesting, laundry, cleaning, cooking, scavenging, other things, but we’ll leave out patrol duty, for, uhm, obvious reasons for both of you, since I’m assuming Katagawa can’t use a gun either. But hey, I’m on the chore wheel too. Again, fairness. We can figure all that out at sunrise, though. It’s already been a long night for everyone.”

“It’s been so long since I’ve been on Pandora, I forgot about the 90 hour days.”

“It’s the wet season, so it’ll be night for about 50 hours.”

“Ah… I forgot to change my watch.” Rhys initialized Katagawa’s cybernetic eye and looked a bit blankly into space for a second. “Right, it makes sense that this is already set to the correct time. Of course.”

“I already fixed mine, er, yours,” Katagawa said. 

“Alright.” Rhys took one last swallow of coffee. “I think I’ll go look at those tools you were talking about, Vaughn.”

Katagawa rubbed at his temple again, “I’m going back to bed.”

\--

Rhys set up in a low-traffic area of the wreck, with boxes and milk crates full of tools from Vaughn, and set to work. He sent a little band of Hellions into the depths to find what they could parts-wise from the old cybernetics department. They returned with even more random containers of wires and scrap and put them down next to the rest. 

His workstation reminded him of the months he’d spent in his undergrad making RC drones one-handed to fly around the quad. He’d had an ungainly robotic prosthetic back then that he’d hardly ever worn instead of the bone-integrated titanium cybernetic arm he had now. It also brought back hazy memories of Cassius helping him reinstall his cybernetics in the old Atlas Bio Dome. Fixing this arm seemed like a spacewalk in the park compared to that, even with all the sand and grit in the joints. 

After what was maybe a day’s work, it was hard to keep track in the perpetual night, he left the arm on his workbench and went to bed. He’d assembled a sleeping place in his workroom with a spare mattress and some blankets. He found he could ease the strange disquiet of this new body by surrounding himself with familiar work. 

Later, when he’d woken up and eaten and was back at work, he was surprised to see himself-but-Katagawa standing in the doorway. Rhys looked away, not entirely sure if he’d ever get used to seeing himself, out of his control, walking and moving around like anybody else. Had he always been this tall?

Katagawa hovered behind him, looking down at his cybernetic. 

“Do you think you can fix it?” 

“It’ll be more Hyperion and Atlas than Maliwan after all this, but yeah, it looks like I can.” Rhys reached for the soldering iron and then waffled, twisting around in his seat. “Wait.”

Katagawa met his gaze, guilty but not repentant.

“You shaved? _ You shaved off my moustache? _” 

“It was itchy and I don’t like facial hair,” Katagawa shrugged. “Plus, it makes you look so old.”

“Oh, alright, sorry, I didn’t realize I was on _ shaving _ terms with the guy who spearheaded the plan to take over Atlas.” Rhys turned back to his work.

“Companies go to war, Rhys."

“You’re the head of Maliwan’s Mergers and Acquisitions. If it wasn’t for your weird fanboy obsession with me, Maliwan might not have even tried to take me on.”

“Please, Maliwan had their eyes on you the day after you took down Handsome Jack. You can’t crash 70 million tons of steel and glass out of orbit without pulling the intergalactic spotlight down on yourself at the same time. When you made it clear you couldn’t be bought, that you were reforging Atlas from the ashes instead of becoming a Vault Hunter, you made some very powerful enemies. Maliwan is just one of them.” Katagawa sat down heavily at the workbench with a sigh, “I really admire what you did, Rhys. Since it was inevitable, I was hoping to keep the merger as… non-violent as possible.”

“What? You seriously thought that you could acquire Atlas and then what? You could get my autograph before they strung up my corpse for the nightly ECHOnet feed? How else did you think it was going to go?” Rhys didn’t give Katagawa time to respond. “On top of that, you shouldn’t admire what I did. I had to bring down all of Helios to scrub away the digital residue of one dead guy.”

“It’s not just me, Rhys. You showed that it’s possible to beat the corporate titans at their own game.”

“Only to become one myself,” Rhys said. 

They sat in silence for awhile, something that was quickly becoming a mainstay of their conversations. 

“Anyway,” Katagawa said. “I _ was _ head of Mergers and Acquisitions. After the siege failed Maliwan tossed me out for the skags.”

“So that’s why you were out wandering the badlands. Nothing like corporate loyalty, huh?”

“You’re certainly right about that.”

“Who’s ready to spin the chore wheel?” Vaughn tossed open the door curtain. .

“Wait, I need just one more minute…” Rhys hefted a shabby-looking car battery onto the table and connected it to the power inputs of Katagawa’s cybernetic. Vaughn and Katagawa leaned over the table expectantly. The battery indicator lights blinked, orange, white, and blue, and then held steady. 

“I knew you could fix it, Rhys,” Vaughn said.

“I’ll need to actually dock it, first. Could be that the osseointegration got screwed up too, but I wouldn’t be able to fix that.”

Rhys disconnected the arm and slid it's connector plug into his shoulder socket. The arm didn’t hold and slipped most of the way out again. Rhys shuddered at the sensation. 

“It needs to be rotated a bit,” Katagawa said. “Let me help.”

He put one hand on Rhys’ shoulder and the other on the cybernetic arm. Pushing the cybernetic back in place, he aligned the internal threads and twisted a quarter turn until there was an audible click. The indicator lights jumped back on. 

Starting at the fingers, Rhys tested the integrity of the nerve inputs. Once he’d verified that everything was moving more or less the way it should, he made a big circle with his arm and stretched out his shoulder. 

“It feels pretty good. I still prefer my own tech, but it’s comfortable.”

“This is a pretty good arm,” Katagawa agreed, looking down at Rhys’ magenta-red and cyan cybernetic. “The finger movement is really precise, mine is definitely a bit clumsier than this.”

“You know where to find me in the future if you ever want a replacement,” Rhys grinned.

\--

Katagawa took a break from hanging laundry and sat down in the shade on a sandstorm-scuffed Hyperion ammo container. Rhys’ cybernetics hurt. A restless ache had settled across the metal-and-bone join of the cybernetic arm. He dug the fingers of his other hand into the twinging transition between flesh and Rhys’ shoulder port. Unlike Rhys, Katagawa’s cybernetic on his own body was connected on his arm just below the shoulder joint instead of replacing it. It was interesting to feel the subcutaneous hardware of Rhys’ arm, so similar to his own and yet so different. 

Of course, Katagawa’s cybernetic arm never hurt quite like this. It had its days, definitely, but the random bouts of pins and needles Katagawa’s left arm experienced were different from the nerve-deep throb that came and went in Rhys’ shoulder. 

Mercifully, the pain in his eye and around his forehead port had ebbed away overnight. He was more used to this, migraines were a pretty standard feature of intracranial cybernetics. Katagawa absolutely hadn’t been among the 5% of patients with no reported side effects. 

Rhys, carrying a basket of freshly-picked fruit, spotted him from in between the fluttering yellow sheets. Katagawa pulled the massaging hand away from his shoulder. 

“One of the aftereffects of ripping out your cybernetics while the nerve connections are still active,” Rhys said, sounding uneasy despite his attempts at the opposite. He offered Katagawa a bit of fruit and sat down next to him on the container.

“There were always rumors that you’d done something like this but I figured it was all talk,” Katagawa chuckled weakly. “Seems like I was wrong. I’m assuming it wasn’t to show Jack how badass you were, though?”

Rhys laughed. “I guess you could say that was certainly part of it. I’ve got some of my meds back in my room if you need them.”

Katagawa nodded. 

“Before that, I know where all the tender spots are if you’ll let me work some of them out for you,” Rhys offered.

“Yeah, that’d be… nice.”

Rhys pressed his thumbs against Katagawa’s shoulder, practiced hands finding the haunts of old pain with ease. 

Katagawa leaned into his touch. 

Scooting a bit closer, Rhys worked his thumbs a little deeper into the tissue near his shoulder. They’d never actually met in person, before all this. Katagawa’s position at Maliwan hadn’t actually entailed any fieldwork, and he’d never stepped foot on Promethea. Their interactions had been limited strictly to ECHO calls and a hefty log of text-based messaging. Neither of them really knew the other in real life.

Rhys’s hand found its way to Katagawa’s forehead port, rubbing gently. Katagawa opened his eyes, not even having realized that he closed them. Their faces were closer together than he’d expected.

“It’s not as good as the painkillers, but I hope it helped,” Rhys said. 

Katagawa exhaled a shaky breath. “It did, thank you.”

\--

Helios Fallen, despite being a huge burnt-out shell of a space station and a massive safety hazard, was a nice change of pace. Rhys still tried to make the most out of his visit to Vaughn’s, regardless of the exact circumstances.

The Hellions had quickly set him up with some bandit-casual attire to replace Katagawa’s sandy Maliwan-issue suit. He did end up undocking and cleaning the cybernetic arm most days, though. Sand really was coarse and rough and it got everywhere.

It had taken a few clumsy days of readjustment after the swap to get used to the length of Katagawa’s limbs. His hand-to-eye coordination had definitely taken a hit. Not reaching things on shelves was a disappointment too. However, his feet never hung off the end of mattresses anymore. Hyperion-issue beds had always been a bit shorter than Rhys liked.

He started to prefer his coffee black, without sugar. It seemed to taste a bit less bitter in Katagawa’s mouth. He slept a bit better as well, although Katagawa’s circadian rhythm had him going to bed and waking up earlier than he ever had in his own body. 

One early morning, Rhys joined Vaughn on his rounds through the interior of Helios Fallen. 

“So,” Vaughn started. “How’s it going… you know… with the whole body swap thing.”

“Well-”

“Cuz’ I still think it’s kinda freaky. You really think it has something to do with the Vault of the Traveler?”

“Lilith’s been telling me about vault treasures and it seems like anything’s possible. Like, did you know that Jack had a big vault symbol scar across his face? That’s what was under the mask.”

“No way! I always thought that something had melted his face off and he wore a mask to hide the fact that he had no face skin.”

“Ew.”

“Right? The whole vault scar thing is way less nasty. What happened?”

“Lilith punched something into his face, I think. I didn’t fully understand what she meant when she was describing it. The vault on Elpis had some kind of floating vault-symbol shaped treasure.”

“That sounds so cool. Too bad you and Fiona don’t remember what happened in the Vault itself.”

“At least there was plenty of loot. Up until now I was fine with missing out on the ‘weird alien tech’ part but it looks like some kind of weird Eridian vault magic must’ve stuck around.”

\--

“For the last time, I am not Rhys,” Katagawa said.

The group of Hellions around him produced a round of disbelieving noises.

“I dunno,” one of them said. “You certainly look like Mr. Rhys.”

Katagawa turned back to his pile of scrap. He’d spun “Salvaging” on the chore wheel that day.

“Mr. Rhys, can you sign my arm? Look, it’s cybernetic too,” another one of the Hellions said. 

“What was Handsome Jack like?”

“Did you really rip off your arm and beat Jack’s robot clone to death with it? That sounds so awesome!”

“Is it true that when you were working at Hyperion you were really working undercover for Atlas?”

“How did you kill the Traveler with your bare hands?”

“Did you really know Roland?"

“What’s your favorite type of sand?”

“How about this,” Katagawa cut in. “The first person to bring me a pair of Vaughn’s socks will get to ask me whatever they want!”

The Hellions whispered among themselves.

“What a good businessman.”

“Strategic management of his personal information,” one of them agreed.

“He’s so vertically integrated.”

The Hellions dispersed. 

Katagawa picked up his basket of salvage. He was already a bit deeper into Helios Fallen than he’d ever been but the Hellions managed to catch up to him no matter where he went. 

Above him, the dry, rolling thunder of an approaching Pandoran megastorm roared, echoing against the bazillion fractured angles of the wreck. 

The deep reaches of the wreck were more intact than the outer parts where Vaughn and the Hellions lived. In certain stretches of hallway, it was easy to visualize how Helios must have looked when it had still been in orbit. The more intact a section was, the more likely it was that the old Hyperion security systems were still online. 

He wondered where Rhys had lived on the station, where he’d worked. Would Rhys recognize where he was right now? This body might have walked this exact hall once, in a different time, with a different soul.

Unsurprisingly, Rhys’ current internal files contained functionally nothing about Helios the way it had been before the fall. There were the standard encyclopedia files that came with all but the most basic cybernetics, along with about a terabyte of more specific reference material and several thousand textbooks. Everything was meticulously organized and searchable. There was also a handy arrow indicating the location of Rhys’ ship, parked somewhere outside, apparently 1732 m away. 

All of Rhys’ Atlas-specific files were under multiple layers of cascade encryption. The Atlas database was open and available, but it offered very little information about Helios or even Pandora in general. A reminder sprung up, announcing that Atlas database version 6.00.11.6a was available. Katagawa confirmed the download, cutting himself off from any of those files as it updated. 

The Hyperion public database was still online in some parts of the wreck and his cybernetic eye produced abundant records about nearly everything he looked at. Navigating his way through the eye’s settings menu, Katagawa came across an option to “enable comments.” Like scrawls of bathroom graffiti, tiny geographically-tagged comment files appeared in his field of vision as he walked. “H4NDS0M J4(K RUL35” said one, positioned in the middle of the hallway. “Lunch leech was here” said another. Inside a storage locker was “if u read this ur gay lol.”

Katagawa had always wanted to visit Helios. He’d even put in an application to Hyperion’s accounting division shortly before the first defeat of Handsome Jack. Hyperion’s ostentatious heavenly body of an HQ hadn’t exactly been open to tourists… unless you knew the right people. 

As he looked over more comments, the rain began. It seemed to start all at once, not building up from a light drizzle but instead immediately coming down like an advancing wall. It was loud inside the wreck, reverberating against the metal like a hive of buzzing varkids. Water dripped in from unexpected places or dumped in whole bathtubs’ worth as metal and who knows what else shifted above him. 

Halfway down a particularly sandy hallway interspersed with crumpled airlock doors, he noticed a splatter of red and silver paint. A few feet further on, there was a clear trail worn through the stagnant desert sand that had collected in the corridor.

The trail tumbled down a wadded up metal mesh staircase with just enough functional steps to still be a useful feature instead of a tetanus trap. At the bottom, the sand became too thin to see the trail. There was, however, a roughly-painted red and silver arrow on the floor at the far side of the room beckoning him forward. 

Katagawa followed the arrows to another airlock door. This one was cycled open, one of the doors loose in its mooring and hanging into the doorway. It was dim inside, but unlike the rest of the wreck that was lit by electric or natural light, what was clearly firelight flickered from within. He peeked in. 

There were two figures in the room and it seemed like one of them was missing their head. Candles at the feet of the two figures and pushed into sand banks in the corners of the room burned warmly. His eyes adjusted and he realized the headless one was a statue. Specifically, it was what must have been a statue of Handsome Jack from before the fall of Helios. The word “Rhys” was spray painted gracelessly across its chest. Standing in front of it was Rhys himself. In fact, he was more than simply standing in front of it, it seemed like he was trying to push it over. 

Another crash of thunder coincided with the statue tipping over and shattering as it hit the sandy metal floor. Candles flickered as dust bloomed up in a cloud from the impact of the fall.

Rhys stood over the effigy, panting softly from the exertion. After a moment, he seemed to notice that someone was looking at him.

“I knew the Hellions had kept this, but I wasn’t expecting how weirdly they’d decided to display it,” he said over his shoulder. 

Katagawa looked down at the pieces of what had once represented Jack, and then Rhys.

“The Hellions have been bothering you, right? Vaughn was telling me about it.”

“If… _ this _,” he gestured to the both of them, “hadn’t happened to me, I wouldn’t believe that it was possible either.”

Somewhere above them, thunder rumbled. Katagawa joined Rhys beside the debris.

“Anyway,” he continued, “I probably deserve it. A few months ago I would’ve been doing the exact same thing if we’d met face to face.”

Rhys hesitated, clearing his throat. “You weren’t all that bad.”

“There’s no need to be nice about it, Rhys. All your prestige made me forget that you’re just a normal person under all that. I was so excited about potentially working with you, the Titan-slayer in the flesh, I didn’t think about anything else.”

“I don’t know if Atlas and Maliwan really had similar enough objectives for that to have worked out, regardless of how they’d tried to merge.”

“Honestly, it was never about that. It was about you. I’d made you out to be something you weren’t.”

“I know what you mean.”

Katagawa looked at him curiously. 

“I had posters of Jack all over my office,” Rhys said. “They might still be around here somewhere.”

“You did not!” 

“No, I definitely did. I knew exactly what kind of person he was and I still idolized him. I still wanted that kind of power for myself.”

“I guess we have that in common.”

“I’m always telling myself that I only restarted Atlas so that I could support my friends- and the Vault Hunters in whatever Lilith and the Watcher said is coming- but it’s definitely also because it’s been my dream for longer than I can remember. But I can’t let myself become like him, I wouldn’t be able to live with that.”

“Rhys…” Katagawa said, softly. 

“‘Everyone thinks they’re the hero of their own story.’” 

“That’s certainly how I felt for most of the siege.”

“Me too.”

“It’s been helpful to be here, away from the corporate drudgery. I’ve had a lot of time to think.”

“Pandora has a way of doing that to you,” Rhys replied.

\--

The most exciting thing about Pizza Tuesday to the Hellions was, of course, that the average Pandoran day during the wet season lasted about 40 hours and Pizza Tuesday would continue long after the sunset and deep into the 50 hour night. 

Rhys, bazillionaire CEO and best bro, wired Vaughn and the Hellions money on a regular basis. As far as he could tell, however, Vaughn spent most of the money on generators and water purifiers and other things the Hellions couldn’t do themselves. All other days of the week they ate scavenged Pandoran classics like carefully prepared firemelon or thresher calamari or steamed drifter legs. On top of that, there was plenty of non-explosive fruit, ranging from native desert varieties and species introduced to the wreck by Vaughn from the Atlas Bio Dome. 

None of that compared to the sheer extravagance of Pizza Tuesday. Pizza delivery was one of the most dangerous professions on Pandora, so most of the really famous joints had opted to expand into satellites full of autonomous pizza kitchens that delivered their hot and cheesy goodness to customers via moonshot. Vaughn regularly ordered one of the largest packages available: the Ultra Supreme Pizza Party Pack. Two insulated moonshot containers filled to the seams with pizza, beer, BBQ varkid legs, salad, and garlic bread.

Rhys had woken up that day to a kind of frenzied shouting that reminded him deeply of Hyperion’s singular attempt at employee appreciation day. The ground-shaking double concussion of moonshots was unmistakable. Pizza Tuesday had arrived.

He cleared up some of his work that had been rattled off his workbench and onto the floor. He might have had a bit too much fun working on Katagawa’s cybernetic arm in his free time. Katagawa had gotten a couple of free dexterity upgrades and Rhys had had some new electronics to play around with. A win-win.

“Come on, bro, we’re setting up in the Snak Shak already,” Vaughn said, stepping into Rhys’ work-slash-bedroom uninvited. 

Rhys rubbed a bit of gunk out of his eyes. “Isn’t it a bit early for pizza?”

“There’s nothing wrong with pizza for breakfast once a week.”

“Don’t you think that partying for the majority of a Pandoran day leaves you a bit… exposed?”

“Don’t worry about all that, Pizza Tuesday is sacred. If there’s a safer time to party on-and-off for like 70 hours on Pandora, I can’t think of one. Besides, it’s good for morale.”

There were suddenly Hellions everywhere. A crowd of them flooded past Rhys and Vaughn, carrying armfuls of packages, and disappeared into the Snak Shak. There were more Hellions here than Rhys had seen in one place during his entire stay in Helios so far. He hadn’t even realized that the Hellions commanded numbers like this in the first place.

Inside the Shak, several extra tables had been set up and laden down with pizza party supplies. Hellions put down their fortune of pizza boxes on every available surface, including a couple of chairs. The room smelled for the first time like actual food, instead of like fried skag dicks and old coffee.

“No wonder they like you so much around here,” Rhys said.

Vaughn shrugged amiably, “A bandit king does what he can.”

They both stopped by the coffee machine, Rhys careful not to add any milk, and mingled. 

“Isn’t this just the best, Rhys? Look at them, having so much fun.”

“I’m surprised that you manage to keep this going all Tuesday long.”

“Tuesday only comes around once a week, Rhys. Plenty of time to recover and look forward to the next one.”

“There’s a limit of three slices per person until everyone’s had some,” one of the Hellions informed Rhys.

“Oh yeah, we order a couple of every kind of pizza on the menu so there’s sure to be something to strike your fancy. The last time I actually looked at the menu I think there were over 250 different pizzas available.”

Rhys found himself a dairy-free breakfast pizza and took a couple slices. 

\--

“Leaving already?” Katagawa caught up with Rhys towards the end of the first “day” of Pizza Tuesday. 

“We’ve got over 70 hours of Pizza Tuesday left.”

“When on Pandora,” Katagawa replied.

“Well, what are you up to?”

“Just looking for the fruit punch. There’s still plenty of it left, I think.”

They mingled with the Hellions as the party relaxed into the building heat of the Pandoran morning. 

Seemingly all at once, they found themselves alone in one of the corridors leading away from the Snak Shak. The route to Rhys’ workspace had already gained a softly worn groove into the compacted sand of the interior of Helios Fallen. 

“Rhys?”

“Hm?”

“What are we going to do about,” he hesitated, “this?”

“I’ve tried everything I can think of to recreate that purple light we saw before the swap, but nothing works.”

“And you think that’s the solution?”

“We don’t exactly have any other clues.” 

“Doesn’t Atlas have experts for this kind of thing? Aren’t there rumors about you and your vault hunter friends knowing some Eridians?”

Rhys dithered.

“What?”

“I didn’t exactly know you, before all this-” 

“Did you think I’d run off with your body and take over Atlas?” Katagawa interrupted.

“You say that like it wouldn’t have seemed like a distinct possibility during the siege.”

Katagawa bit his lip.

“You’re right. You had no real reason to trust me,” Katagawa looked down, crossing his arms.

“Kind of my most important asset you’ve got there,” Rhys said. “Would’ve been easy for you to go off and pretend to be me.”

Katagawa put his hands on his hips. “I was just as freaked out as I assume you were at the beginning. To be honest, the thought didn’t even cross my mind until much later.” 

“But it did cross your mind.”

“Give me some credit, Rhys. It was a pretty obvious thing to think of.”

They were quiet for a moment.

“Despite everything,” Rhys said, “it was nice to just get to actually know you.” 

Katagawa blushed. Rhys found it a bit strange to see himself this way, vulnerable in a way that he didn’t get to see reflected in a mirror.

“’Atlas’ CEO’s number one fan,’” Rhys replied, quoting an ECHOnews article title from sometime during the siege.

“Not like that. Well, maybe a bit at first.”

“I knew it,” Rhys teased.

“Rhys, don’t think that I’m getting close to you like this because of some idolized version of you I have in my head. I’ve gotten to know the person you actually are and he’s really great.”

“It’s been nice getting to know you too, away from all the corporate nonsense” Rhys said, leaning closer.

Katagawa chuckled. “The way we’ve gotten to know each other was certainly unconventional.”

Rhys placed a hand on Katagawa’s. “I wouldn’t change it, though.”

Katagawa leaned down to kiss him, placing his hands on the back of Rhys’ head, pulling him close.

As their lips met, a sparkle of purple electricity crackled between them. Both of them flinched away from the light and heat. 

Purple energy radiated along the channels and ridges of Katagawa’s cybernetics, casting strange light across both of them. Rhys’ eye lit up with matching purple light.

“So this must be one of the weird side effects of opening the vault that you were talking about,” Katagawa said, a bit breathlessly.

“I’ve never seen it do anything like this.”

“What do we do?”

“Let me see,” Rhys gestured toward Katagawa’s arm. 

Katagawa reached out his hand and Rhys took it.

As the cybernetic limbs touched, the otherworldly energy burst forth again and locked their hands together. 

Suddenly, everything seemed to be spinning. 

They were nowhere at all. Everything seemed to shift, but where and how it had shifted was indeterminable. Rhys had the distinct sense that he was moving, but he wasn’t sure why. It seemed like he was remembering something. Or, maybe he was forgetting. For a moment things were making sense, before they stopped.

All at once, things made sense again and stayed that way. 

For the first time in nearly an entire Pandoran week, Rhys was himself again. He felt back in place in a way that he never had before but also always had. Even without seeing Katagawa in front of him, his body instilled him with an overwhelming sense of veracity. Being Katagawa had been fine, but being himself again was great. 

Katagawa ran a hand across his face, though his hair. 

“Rhys?”

“I don’t know what just happened, but it seems like we figured it out.”

**Author's Note:**

> In order of appearance, the lovely art above is by:
> 
> [Redstele](https://redstele.tumblr.com/)  
[Anna](https://twitter.com/nastiibruja?lang=en)
> 
> A big thank you to both of them!!
> 
> Another enthusiatic thank you to [Kira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flannelunicorn/pseuds/flannelunicorn), who as always has done a marvelous job beta'ing, and one to [Burl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/burlesque_articulation/pseuds/burlesque_articulation). This fic certainly wouldn't exist the way it does today without either of you.


End file.
